Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s family has donated Rs 44 lakh to the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) Annaprasadam Trust, covering the cost of one day’s free meal service for devotees.

The chief minister, along with his family members, visited Tirumala Saturday and offered prayers to Lord Venkateswara on the occasion of his grandson N. Devansh’s birthday. For the first time after the adulterated ghee laddus controversy, Naidu mingled with devotees and sought their feedback on the quality of laddus.

The chief minister and his family members visited the Tarigonda Vengamamba Annadanam Complex, where they served food and interacted with devotees. While the quality of laddus has improved, several devotees requested faster darshan arrangements.

Naidu conducted a review meeting with TTD officers in which he emphasised that a quick and smooth ‘darshan’ remains the core of the Tirumala experience. The TTD said that with daily footfall at around 73,000 in this financial year, its goal is to increase darshan capacity without compromising dignity or comfort. Through process optimisation, rotation management, and atmosphere preservation, darshan is becoming smoother and more spiritually enriching. Lean-time analytics and predictive modelling help balance crowd flow and reduce peak-time congestion.

A fully digital, real-time command centre now connects queue management, field teams, and operations through live dashboards, instant alerts, and hourly monitoring. The AI-based Govinda system predicts footfall, waiting times, and capacity utilisation, enabling dynamic decision-making and transforming operations into a data-driven framework. Proven results — including reducing Vaikunta Ekadashi wait times from 11 to 8 hours (a 27% improvement) — demonstrate that scale and quality can grow together. Devotee experience is being made seamless through smart entry systems, airport-grade baggage and vehicle scanning, and fully paperless administration, ensuring safety, speed, and convenience at every stage of the journey.

Naidu also inaugurated a sophisticated and advanced Food Analysis Lab in Tirumala, the first temple-proximate lab of its kind in the country, set up for TTD at a cost of Rs 25 crore.

Funded by FSSAI and the AP government, the new 12,000 sq ft State Food Laboratory dedicates 6,000 sq ft each to chemical and microbiological analysis. There are over 50 equipments in the lab, including the “electronic tongue” and “electronic nose”, which have been imported from France at a cost of Rs 3.5 crore. The devices can detect even the minutest changes in the purity, taste, smell, and texture of ghee. Other advanced equipment include systems to test fatty acids, pesticides, and volatiles; HPLC/LC-MS to test mycotoxins, drugs, and additives; and AAS/ICP-MS to test heavy metals in food and water.

Other equipment includes fibre, protein, and fat analysers, a butyro refractometer, and a UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The lab will test raw materials for Srivari Prasadam and Annaprasadam, as well as prepared items like laddus. It will process 1,000–1,500 samples every month.

The TTD said that Tirumala is transitioning to world-class standards of cleanliness, air and noise control, and real-time environmental monitoring. The long-term sustainability vision includes restricting private vehicles beyond Tirupati, expanding controlled and fully electric mobility, increasing renewable energy use, and moving toward a net-zero, pollution-free Tirumala.

TTD Executive Officer Muddada Ravichandra said that TTD’s temple network — currently 63 temples — is being connected through real-time digital monitoring, along with plans to build additional temples and expand into state capitals and global Hindu communities. The TTD plans to evolve these temples into centres of peace, meditation, healing, and inner transformation.